Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi

Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi (31 January 1934-) was a member of the Iranian Assembly of Experts from 21 February 1991 to 23 May 2016. Mesbah-Yazdi was known for being the most conservative cleric in Iran and for being the spiritual leader of the Front of Islamic Revolution Stability.

Biography
Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi was born in Yazd, central Iran on 31 January 1934. Educated as a Shia cleric in Iraq, Mesbah-Yazdi became politically active in 1963 following 15 Khordad movement, but he became politically isolated during the 1970s and 1980s for attacking Ali Shariati's views and claiming that they did not contribute to the Iranian Revolution. It was not until after Ayatollah Khomeini's death in 1989 that Mesbah-Yazdi would become a significant force in politics, being elevated to the Assembly of Experts in 1991. In 1997, he encouraged the IRGC to stop President Mohammad Khatami from passing any reforms by any means necessary, and he supported Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential candidacy. In 1998, he encouraged the murders of Iranian dissidents with fatwas, and he issued a fatwa calling for the murder of Mir-Hossein Mousavi in 2009. Mesbah Yazdi became known as the theoretician of the Islamist radicals in Iran, opposing Western culture and claiming that Zionism was the root of all evil in the world. He became the spiritual leader of the Front of Islamic Revolution Stability, opposing reformism and Westernization.